TIVP048: S&P GLOBAL (SPGI): THE COMPANY BEHIND THE MARKET

W/ DANIEL MAHNCKE & SHAWN O’MALLEY

TIVP048: S&P GLOBAL (SPGI): THE COMPANY BEHIND THE MARKET W/ DANIEL MAHNCKE & SHAWN O’MALLEY

30 November 2025

Daniel Mahncke and Shawn O’Malley dive into S&P Global – the data and benchmark giant that is best-known for the S&P 500 index. But with businesses spanning from credit ratings to equity and bond indices, commodity benchmarks, and deep analytical datasets, S&P is far more than just an index business.

This episode breaks down how S&P Global became one of the most durable, capital-light compounders of the last half-century and how it can benefit, rather than be disrupted, by AI. Daniel and Shawn examine the company’s structural advantages: its role as a trusted arbiter of creditworthiness, the explosive rise of passive investing that powers index-linked revenues, and the integration of IHS Markit that expanded its reach across private markets, energy, and enterprise data.

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IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:

  • About S&P Global’s founding story
  • What businesses S&P Global operates
  • About S&P’s Rating Business
  • About S&P’s Market Intelligence Business
  • About S&P’s Index Business
  • About S&P’s Commodity Insight Business
  • About S&P’s Mobility Business
  • How S&P thinks about Capital Allocation
  • Whether Shawn & Daniel add SPGI to The Intrinsic Value Portfolio
  • And much, much more!

TRANSCRIPT

Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.

[00:00:00] Daniel Mahncke: S&P Global is obviously best known for the S&P 500 Index, but it’s actually a total world business covering half of the financial industry. It’s the biggest rating agency in the world, operates a duopoly with MSCI in the index business, and it competes with Bloomberg in the financial data world.

[00:00:17] Shawn O’Malley: And it’s been one of the steadiest compounders in the markets for years. Outperforming the market by a pretty substantial margin in the last decade.

[00:00:25] Daniel Mahncke: But after the fact that was sent on by over 50% this year on weak guidance, the market also partnered S&P, and after that, the ubiquitous fears of ai. And you might have a great opportunity to buy S&P at a discount right now.

[00:00:44] Intro: You’re listening to The Intrinsic Value Podcast by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Since 2014, with over 180 million downloads, we’ve learned directly from the world’s best investors. Now we are applying those lessons to analyze businesses and investment opportunities every week, helping you uncover intrinsic value. And now here are your hosts, Shawn O’Malley and Daniel Mahncke.

[00:01:16] Shawn O’Malley: When most listeners hear the letters S&P, they think of the S&P 500 index, the scoreboard of the American Stock Market, you might say, and the best known index in the world. And it is the benchmark. Almost every portfolio manager has to compare his or her performance to, whether you’re a pension fund, a hedge fund, or a retail investor like us.

[00:01:39] Shawn O’Malley: Your investing journey is really only successful when you’re outperforming the S&P and unsuccessful when you underperform, or at least that’s how many people think of it. A company that was able to outperform this index for decades is actually the company behind that index, S&P Global. It is arguably one of the highest quality companies in the US and in the world.

[00:02:01] Shawn O’Malley: It’s always very popular in the quality compounder circles of investors and. It’s a lot more than just an index business, I should say. I covered MSCI couple weeks ago, and MSCI has been and still is a great business, but we very much had our concerns about the future and the valuation there because it is so concentrated on just the index side of things. And since you decided to pitch S&P Global today I assume you don’t have those same concerns, Daniel?

[00:02:27] Daniel Mahncke: Well, I think we’ll definitely see that S&P is just a much more diversified business, so it’s certainly an advantage to have given the potential terminal value concerns that we did have for the MSCI.

[00:02:37] Daniel Mahncke: As we said in the episode, it’s not like they are the most likely outcome, but I do think it’s great to have an even more diversified business without sacrificing all the quality in the companies.

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